


White Curls & Bubble Baths

by Jenwryn



Category: Death Note
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-05-30
Updated: 2009-05-30
Packaged: 2017-10-02 10:02:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jenwryn/pseuds/Jenwryn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Light has never asked what it was that Near had originally wanted, but he doesn't think it matters anymore, either way. AU [sticks to the canon ending, except for one obvious difference!].</p>
            </blockquote>





	White Curls & Bubble Baths

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sabriel75](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sabriel75/gifts).



> I think my current obsession with bubbles has just hit overload, haha. Anyhoo, this one was written as a little thank you gift for **sabriel75**.

The bathwater is warm, lapping wet kisses at Light's chin when he tilts his head slightly to nudge a rubber duck, the colour of cartoon sunshine, forwards with his nose. The toy bobs in the water, pushing at its fellow ducks as it journeys from one end of the bath to the other, and Light watches it go, his eyelids heavy with steam and contentment. Beneath the water, one of Light's feet is toying with his bath mate's warm knee, which is slender and slightly knobbly, Light's toes brushing against fine white leg hair that's just long enough to shift with the undercurrents made when the water moves. Light is quiet, as he pushes his foot along the thigh that the knee belongs to, along, until it meets malleable body, then to the left, his toes brushing gently against a bellybutton. The owner of the bellybutton blinks at Light from over the castle he's been building with handfuls of white bubbles, makes a noise akin to a squeak, and squirms happily as Light's toes dip southwards to explore soft curls and cock.

Light isn't entirely sure which is better proof of the unexpected direction his life has taken – the fact that he's here in the first place, or the fact that he enjoys it.

He's about to slide forwards to replace his foot with his fingers, when Near vanishes beneath the surface, only to reappear, a moment later, all bedraggled with warm water and gleaming bubbles, directly between Light's legs. Near has a devious smirk on his face and he shakes his wet hair like a puppy. Light blinks and frowns at the water flicked into his eyes, but he smiles a second later, when both of Near's hands find purchase just above Light's knees, and smooth their way along Light's thighs, just like Light's wandering toes had been doing to Near.

"I like it when you smile," Near whispers, his eyes wide and grey and earnest, as he slips even closer to Light, shifting up onto his own knees, and making the water shimmer uneasily at all his movement.

Light raises his eyebrows, and pushes a lost duck away from the space between them, but gives the younger man a grin for good measure. It feels nice, to grin like this. It feels nice, too, as Near closes the distance between them completely, pressing their warm bodies together with a damp sound, and making the water sway. Light can feel the hardness, which his toes had traced into being, press against him beneath the water, and his grin turns into a smirk to rival Near's. Light likes it, when Near gets like this, when Near's looking at Light as if he owns him, when Near sighs happily at the feel of Light's hands on his body. Admittedly, Light likes the feel of his hands on Near's body too, as he traces his thumb along the younger man's knobbly backbone, and slides his other fingers down and around, to lose themselves amongst the curls swaying at the apex of Near's legs. He likes the way Near's contented sighs split and give birth to a gentle moan, as Light's fingers encircle the proof that Near likes Light as much as Light likes Near.

There are days, it's true, when Light pauses to question how they got like this, got so muddled up, the two of them, prisoner and gaoler, both victims of their own ideals, both mourning the loss of a man that Light himself had killed. The grief had been a dull blade for so long, grief at something that Light can't even remember doing, although intellectually he understands that he did. Light supposes that there's only so much a human being can take in; he supposes that there's only so much a human being can _take_. But there had been Near, in amongst the blood and the hate and... nothing had made sense, not even Near himself, but at least Near had made no sense in an interesting manner, like a game, like a game the two of them could play to assuage the guilt. Like a game, because Light had thought that Near was nothing more than an echo of the things that he'd lost, but he'd been wrong; Near was a completely different hand of cards in a separate round. And Near, Near, Near had wanted... ah, Light has never even asked what it was that Near had originally wanted. And now it doesn't seem to matter any more, either way, not when the world has become a place where Light has a different name, and Light works at the new L's side, and there are devious smirks to be found amongst the detection, and there are moments, like this, like here, when there is nothing but bubbles and mirth and raw wanting.

"Sometimes, I don't understand you," Light murmurs, as Near pulls them into slightly deeper water, as Near wraps himself around Light, and leans in to kiss Light's lashes.

"Does it matter?" asks Near, blowing bubbles from Light's hair with a puff of warm breath, and sliding one of his hands between them with obvious intent.

Light closes his eyes and lets his head rest back against the edge of the bath, the water lapping higher and higher, as Near's body moves against him, then in him, slowly, slowly, finding a rhythm to break Light all over again, in the most wonderful of ways.

Light supposes that Near's right, and it doesn't really.

He shifts with Near, inhales bubbles, grips at enamel, sigh-moans as Near rocks them to a place where there's nothing but white and warmth, and the water spilling over the tub and onto the floor.

Doesn't matter at all.


End file.
